Acronis Cyber Foundation and Cloudfest, the world’s number one cloud computing conference, in partnership with the German charity Esperanza e.V., have opened a new school in San Antonio, Sololá, Guatemala. This is the seventh school Acronis has helped open. The Escuela Oficial Urbana Mixta San Antonio will provide a quality educational environment, including free education and uniforms for 525 children.
Compared to other Latin American countries, Guatemalans suffer from low-quality education due to a lack of teachers. Just 74.5% of the population age 15 and over is literate. And though the Guatemalan government runs a number of free public elementary and secondary-level schools, the high cost of uniforms, supplies, and transportation means a significant number of children are unable to attend. As a result, indigenous Guatemalans are highly disadvantaged, making school construction in rural villages absolutely essential.
The Escuela Oficial Urbana Mixta San Antonio is located in the municipality of Sololá in the department of the same name. The provincial capital has about 20,000 inhabitants and is located in the highlands of Guatemala in the immediate vicinity of the Lago de Attilan. Funds for the construction of Escuela Oficial Urbana Mixta San Antonio were raised by the Acronis Cyber Foundation and CloudFest.
“We were honored to work with the Acronis Cyber Foundation during CloudFest to raise funds to help support the initiative to bring free quality education to the needy community of San Antonio, Sololá,” said Soeron von Varchmin, CEO, CloudFest. “With this new school, we are giving the children of Guatemala an opportunity to learn about the world and improve their education.”
The Escuela Oficial Urbana Mixta San Antonio is a school center consisting of one pre-primary, one primary, and two secondary schools. Previously, the 525 students in attendance shared 10 classrooms, leading to significant overcrowding. The Escuela Oficial Urbana Mixta San Antonio will now have fifteen classrooms that will provide educational services to students, a breakroom for teachers, and a kitchen. The new construction will ensure smaller class sizes and allow more space for the high-demand classes. In addition to the new construction, CloudFest presented four laptops to the two secondary schools to help the students in their computing and graphic design classes which were missing from these classes previously.
“It was important to design the new classrooms with the students in mind. It´s not just about a safe learning environment, but also about a space where the teachers have the opportunity to provide their students with a quality education.” said school architect Luis Alberto Palacios.
